QUESTIONS SHE ASKED ME

A friend of mine once asked me what I thought about the relationship between youth and principles. Here’s what I told her:

Youth and Principles?

I hear they're just friends. Principles lost his heart to Youth and began thinking of her day and night. He wanted to get more serious, but Youth was all, "I don't want to spoil what we already have." Of course Principles, having lost his heart to haughty Youth, was pissed. Hoping against hope, he reminded Youth of the time they'd made out at Revolution's house. But apparently that was just a one-time thing. And besides, Youth protested, they were very drunk.

Seriously? I have no idea how to answer that question. It is like asking me, "What's the relationship between the name of a book and the subject it deals with?" I could write a book about it.

The probable answer? Their relationship is big, important, and complicated. It should be simple, keen and pure, I know. But such is life, and such the matters of the heart.

Upon hearing that, she was silent for a moment, chewing around what I had said for a while. Then she asked me whether I also thought that time has power to heal all that arrogance usually does to youth. I answered:

That is another tragedy. Youth is in the habit of buying herself more Time whenever there is a dearth of it. The mall is just around the corner and Youth does not mind. She is quite rich, you see, being the child of Innocence, and thus quite used to living the easy life. In fact, I recall only one time when she had a little break in her salad-days.

It was the season of Elections. Government and his associates were mining for buried gold on University’s land, which had been sold to Government’s father a decade ago. Youth’s house was just behind the place and its foundations were weak. When Government and co. accidentally struck the bedrock under Youth’s place, the roof caved in.

Youth was furious. She liked her security, you see. So she made a few calls and then went over to Revolution’s place, where War, Utopia, Facebook and Zeal were already present. They concocted an outrageous plan and with it, Government and his associates’ hopes of finding buried gold under University’s land were brought swirling down.

But all was not happy. In the great tumult, Zeal had gone mad. Rumours said he might have fled to a terrorist camp in the hills. Utopia lost her life to one Stanley Kubrick’s bullet (which he had shot through a strange ‘camera-gun’ that was loaded through a complex clockwork mechanism and had the words ‘Hello Vietnam’ printed along the barrel). And, it was whispered, that while War was breathing its last breaths, Youth “had to” sacrifice Revolution for the greater good. Only Facebook came out of the battle unscathed, and richer at that. The great strife was over and won, but not without costs. And all this… for what?

So Youth could buy yet more time.

Now, may I answer plainly?

To youth, time is cheap. I know it for a fact. Youth is greedy and afraid of change, and it always fights to prolong itself. A youngster would forever stay young and an old man would always dream of youth and greener days. We all like to feel young, and in wanting for a mask, we soon become the disguise. It’s always been a rule.

Time cannot heal youth of the wounds it acquires by its actions. Youth fights too well, you see, and it is always a bit younger than us.

Over this, she pondered longer yet. Last of all, she asked me, “What do you believe in, Anant? What stirs you? What is it that lights you up with fire, with longing for change?” Then, suddenly self-conscious, she asked me again, “What do you believe in, Anant?”

Art. Revolution, philosophy and all that can bugger itself. I love art. Is there more to say?

OF LOVE

I do not know about women, but of love, I have known much and more.

Love is of two kinds, my father believes, of family and of duty; and he is a righteous man, gentle and kind. My love for him is a wordless thing, deep and strong as the roots of an oak. He is stern of face, honest and loving.

Love is of the child, of the heart, my mother thinks, and of happiness. When she is sad or hurt, her eyes turn inward, and she does not speak. She always makes fun of me and never misses a chance to smile. For this, sometimes, I love her most of all.

Of my sister’s thoughts on the subject of love, I do not know so well, but her imagination is of a romantic and she is neither frail nor gullible. If I could love each person I loved for just one quality, I would love her for her strength.

My teacher in English and close friend from days in school would say that love was not the thing for me and that I would be better off without pocketing all her favourite students, and she would say these things with a teasing look in her eyes. She is a wonderful person, young and wise, and I have enjoyed learning from her.

Most people I have known in my life could say a lot about love, and they could be right or wrong. Many people I have known would balk at any casual usage of the word, if not outwardly then inwardly. The word itself is precious to them, so I assume love itself must mean much, and more. Some I know declare themselves non-believers, some aspirants, and the rest are either too confused or too busy for love.

Books have also been close to me, and we have often discussed love and life, at length. And since books are thoughts of men, oftentimes intelligent men and sometimes wise ones, they have always made me wonder. But then, books are words of men. And some books say that words are wind.

One of my friends is afraid of love, though she longs for it. She is confused and likely to brood if you give her room for it, with unruly hair and a pretty smile. For all the foolish things she does in innocence and confusion, I love her. Another friend I have, bald, fat and intelligent, keeps falling in love with women. Every time a love fails him, he somehow finds it in himself to love again, even more passionately than the last time. He is fierce and smart and with an honest heart. His capacity to love has always kept me in awe.

When I was born my uncle named me after a hero from the scriptures. In my third year, I was given my proper name and depending on how you say it, it might mean many things: ‘infinite’, ‘endless’, ‘the universe’, or ‘the sky’. Names are important to me, for they intrigue.

Like anyone else, I have been many things. In school, I was a fine athlete, a good student, a foolish friend and a well-loved political figure. A pretty friend of mine once told me I had a tongue made for flirting and I have since proven her right in the literal way, yet wrong in a matter of suggestion. I have been naïve and cruel and hurtful to people close to me, and I have known my faults and failures. My first real girlfriend thought she was in love with me and would often ask me to smirk for her because she loved to see me do it. My father says I have curious eyes and his gentle smile, and sometimes I like to believe him. My mother tells me that I have so much hair on my limbs because our house in Ajodhya was always surrounded by monkeys when she was carrying me, and because all she read in those days were Ukrainian folk tales. She laughs every time she makes that quip; and my mother looks beautiful when she laughs.

I have been many things, known many loves and loved many people, but of them all, the love of a woman I know is the dearest to me. You might think that common and obvious, but it makes no matter. All men are dust and the purpose of life is love, maybe, and perhaps I am no different.

I am a gentle man, but passionate. And if I put myself to something, I do it well or not at all. I have had many loves and know many things that would take its guise. I cannot say of true love or love that can make the minstrels weep, but I can claim to love a woman like no other, and love her so much that all my other loves would shrivel in comparison.

She has brown eyes that look golden when the sun fills them, and hair so deep a brown that it is almost black sometimes. Her name is of three syllables, and I find it musical. When she laughs, I am reminded of my mother, and when she smiles, it warms me like sunlight.

She is quick to hurt, quick to smile and quick to talk, and guards her affections like a right-wing traditionalist. She can talk to me in seamless chatter while solving complex mathematical calculations and I have always seen it as a partly fascinating and partly annoying quality she has. Annoying only because I hate to share her with anyone, least of all boring paperwork.

In the morning, she smells like honey and autumn leaves. I am a writer at heart, and of her, I have written much, in poems and stories alike. When sleeping, she always rolls to one side. She looks like my mother when she is sad, and I have never known sadness more saddening. Sometimes, she even manages to keep her tears from me.

If you would have me compare her with a bird, I would pick the sparrow. If you asked me to name a colour for her, I would say pink. If you told me to sing for her, I would write a song.

I once spent three sleepless nights trying to find the one flower that best suited her, and in the end, decided it was the one that had involuntarily come to my mind when first I had thought about the question. In a small drawer that only sees her prying hands, she keeps my letters and tokens and gifts. They go back to the time when I was tripping over my toes to woo her. I have never spent half of half so long wooing another person; but then, as you know, when I do something, I like to do it well.

She thinks me a fiery lover, and tender, and knows that I love well. As for me, I believe I may not be the best lover in the world, but I know enough of love to love her best.

KNOWLEDGE AND KNOWING

There are few things that The Bard hates. He does not say dislike, mind you, or detest, or despise, or loathe, or even abhor. No, he says none of these things. They are but varying degrees of his general equation with several minor failings of the world. He says hate and he means hate when he says it.
Among these very few objects of his hate (and such hate it is!) is the presumption of knowledge. He sees all sorts of men, smug in their confidence, in their absolute arrogance, about knowing things. He sees such men, and he hates them for their presumptions. He would prefer sadness and sympathy to such a strong feeling as hate, but sometimes such emotions will not be helped, or held at bay. Not even by The Bard.
So, he was talking about these men. For such as them, knowledge is not a pursuit. It is not even a mystery, or a love. No, for them, it is an obsession. It is just the short-spent lust, like what men sometimes do to their hands in the long lonely hours.
Knowledge should not be a wasted word. We have enough of these wasted words today. Words like 'wisdom', 'love', 'art', 'honor', 'joy'. Power, Integrity, Sorrow. I. Me. Mine.
These words have become like tools. People would not earn them, or struggle in their practice with them, just swing them like blunt weapons, or wear them like assorted clothes. It saddens The Bard, and sometimes it pains him.
The world is falling as it ever was; and The Bard holds humanity responsible.
The thing about humanity is, it is but a child of the mind. From the Vedic Age to the Christian, the wheel to the guitar, money to poetry, sympathy to disgust, ours has been a development of the mind. And in such development, we have probably left civilization and reason behind. Today, everyone is a self-established intellectual. Everyone is an individual, everyone an artist, analyst and wise.
The mind takes pleasure in indulgence of excess, and we are but like armatures to the machine. In ways more than one, we are so governed by our mind's want of progress, that we become obsessive about knowledge. We do not strive to achieve it, though that is usually how it begins and how it should be. Instead, we war to possess it, to own it. We forget it is not a destination we are looking for, but an atmosphere.
Knowledge is not a thing you could contain. It is pervasive, The Bard explains. Some profound man said that it cannot be found in libraries, but it is like a library you build, around yourself, through experience. Knowledge is also not shouted, it is preferably kept. If need be, it is expressed. Or imparted, if the object of the teaching is deep enough, and the source content in teaching.

Above all, true knowledge is humbling, dear reader. The Bard does not claim to have any real depth where it is concerned, he confesses, but he does have an inkling of it. If you were any wiser, you too would shake away your presumptions and your pride. He does not really wish to hate you or your kind, after all.

ON DHOBI GHAT

Flamboyance is not quite the thing for this one, so Bard will quit his Third Person for once.

***

I have found it difficult to shut up once I have witnessed something I have never seen before. So it happens that I believe that, perhaps, this film has been more. Maybe I am still too much inside it, or maybe I have so let it devour me that I cannot bring myself to speak? Or maybe it is just my silent phase today?

I cannot say.

What I can describe with surety is the fact that there was nothing so special about the film (in the way most 'special' goes) but that it surpassed anything out of the Indian stock. This film was not a wonderful watch (like Udaan, let us say). It was not a beautiful piece of art (like Dev-D, let us say). Nor was it a joyous ride despite its many tragedies (like Ishqiya, let us say).

Dhobi Ghat was an experience. Honestly, I am still in it.

I personally would not like writing about my opinion or my perception of a film, or a book, or a story, or an artwork. Being an artist myself, I find it difficult to criticize or comment upon another artist's work, since his is not my vision, not my art.

(And, just to be sure, make note that I do not count people behind Guzaarish, No One Killed Jessica, Jab We Met, Ayesha, I Hate Love Stories and Maadhyam among artists. No, they might be good marketeers, but calling them artists would almost be a paradoxical insult. In a comic fashion.) 

So, as I was saying, publishing my opinion or comments on an artist's work is not my usual way of praising it. Unless, of course, it serves my professional interests, or gets me a worthy academic score.

Today, however, I am making an exception to that rule.

Here is a film that makes me think, really takes me through lives from paper that seem so real that I almost feel as if they are mine. I have always said that nothing is definite, that you cannot give a start or put an end to something, that things are not even circular, but transient. This film is one of those experiences that prove it. It puts you in the flow of the lives it talks about, takes you places, then leaves you at a place strangely similar to where it picked you. 

Of course, one can always do scrutiny, find little little convenient faults, but that is not my wish here. Today, the Bard has been moved enough to quit his flamboyant ways. As to the rest, I gather silence talks for itself.

PS: A review, in The Bard's professional interests, shall come later.